Saturday, June 30, 2012

Lidia's Back-to-School Freebies (Swap and Hop)

Looking for me? I'm not here. I'm swappin' and hoppin' over at Going Nutty in Miss Squirrel's First Grade. Please come see what I'm sharing about one of the things I love to put into my classroom library. You can say hi to Miss Squirrels while you're there.

While I'm away, I've left my blog in the best of hands. Please welcome Lidia, and thanks for making her feel at home.

Hello! My name is Lidia. I am the author of Kinder Alphabet and Kinder Latino. I am excited to be a guest blogger on this wonderful blog. I hope that you enjoy today's post. I have a couple of resources to help you prepare for Back to School.

Lesson Plan Book:

The first thing that I think about is my lesson plan book. I need to get it organized and ready so that I can start adding my weekly lessons. If you have taught about 16 years, like I have, you might remember the huge, bulky lesson plan books. For many years, I had to use those big books. I had no other option. I am so glad that those are not around anymore. It was too hard taking work home and having to also carry that big thing around. I was happy when we finally got the letter size books.

Here is a picture of the two different sizes of lesson plan books so that you can see the big difference.

Even though the letter size books were easy to carry and a lot more convenient, they were not enough. We wanted a way to personalize our lesson plan templates. Wow! What a difference that made. We created our own template and typed in all the daily routines that always remained the same. That was such a time saver. So, needless to say, we began to use binders to store our lesson plans. And here is the best part of that story! Since teachers love to make things CUTE, I made this cover just for you. It's a binder cover for your lesson plan book. Just insert it in the binder sleeve. Do you like the colorful insect theme? Now, you can set your lesson plan book nicely on your desk or guided reading table. It is an attractive way to display your lesson plan book. Administrators and substitute teachers will also be able to locate your plans binder easily when they enter your classroom.

Next, you need to have a couple of transportation items ready for that first day/week of school. These will help you stay organized during dismissal time. You need to make sure that everyone gets home on time. There is nothing worse than getting that phone call from a parent who is wondering why their child did not arrive home.

Use this form to fill in important information. Then, place it in a clear sleeve and onto a clipboard. You can use a vis-a-vis marker to check the form of transportation. This is a good method in the first couple of weeks of school. You will find that students' form of transportation might change in those first days of school. It will be easy to wipe off the marker and check off the correct column. After the students have an established way to get home, you can pencil it in on the form itself.

Click on the picture to get it.

Dismissal Name Tags

Finally, I wanted to include these dismissal name tags that will come in handy the first few weeks of school. It makes it simple to sort students into the different dismissal groups without having to ask them "How do you get home?" Many of our students do not know how they are supposed to go home until it becomes an established routine. I also place a set of these (with student names on them) in the substitute folder.

Thank you for having me. I hope that you are able to use these resources to prepare for the the Back to School madness. I would love to see you over at my Kinder Alphabet blog some day:)

Lidia R. Barbosa from:

Thanks to Lidia for sharing her helpful ideas here on Forever in First! If anyone is interested in visiting other wonderful blogs that are swapping today, you're in luck. Take a look below.